The present invention relates to emergency vehicles, primarily police vehicles. For years, police vehicles have employed flashing blue emergency lights conspicuously located on the top of the vehicle. During an emergency situation, the driver turns the flashing lights on, clearly signifying to the surrounding drivers, pedestrians, and other nearby individuals to clear a path to permit the emergency vehicle to race to the emergency. The problem with this type of vehicle, for some emergency personnel, is the location of the lights makes it difficult for the vehicle to be inconspicuous in non-emergency situations.
More recently, emergency vehicles designed to be inconspicuous in non-emergency situations have been devised. One design has been to locate the emergency lights behind the grille, which makes it difficult to identify the emergency vehicle until the flashing emergency lights are started. The problem with this design is, due to the obstruction of the grille, the lights are not very conspicuous when started. Because the lights are not conspicuous, surrounding drivers, pedestrians, and other nearby individuals are not quickly aware of the need to clear a path to permit the emergency vehicle to race to the emergency. Therefore, an emergency light system for emergency vehicles is needed that is inconspicuous when the lights are off and conspicuous when the lights are on.
Another problem with the emergency lights behind the grille is installation. Generally, inconspicuous emergency vehicles are initially standard publicly sold vehicles that are retrofitted with emergency equipment. Retrofitting involves mounting brackets in locations not designed for supporting the brackets and other equipment behind the grille to support the lights and then installing the lights. This retrofitting sometimes leads to intended structural weaknesses in the grille and can be labor intensive if there is insufficient space behind the grille for mounting lights. Ideally, retrofitting is accomplished with minimal labor and without the installation of brackets and other materials where the environment is not designed for the installation.